


Lost and found

by LeighJ



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 10, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Lives, Death, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Explicit Language, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Inner Dialogue, Light Angst, Monologue, Overthinking, POV Daryl Dixon, Pain, Post-Season/Series 10 Finale, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sad with a Happy Ending, Season/Series 10, Season/Series 10 Speculation, Struggling, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-01-29 15:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21412288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeighJ/pseuds/LeighJ
Summary: Daryl's bone tired but he pushes through to await Maggie's return home. The unexpected guest might be the last blow he can take though.Third place 'Best reunion/fix-it' Moonshine Award Winner.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon & Beth Greene, Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 66
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically what I want to happen at the end of the season. This is purely made for selfish purposes but please enjoy!

Bone deep tired.

That’s all Daryl feels. It’s like he hasn’t slept from the day the fire burned across the border. He knows he’s on his last legs, knows that one blow will send him over the edge. Alpha is still around, still killing, still encroaching on their land. Stealing it, tainting it, destroying it. They’re all so tired and when the news of Maggie’s return home come about, it just about revives him. It pushes him to the gates day after day, where he routinely checks in, waiting on Maggie’s arrival back to Hilltop. She sent the letter a while back, letting them know she was making plans to come home very soon, but they’ve been so distracted and pulled apart, it’s been weeks.

They don’t even know if she’s coming today. He’s been doing this for the last three since he read the letter. Wouldn’t have even known of it if he hadn’t come here with Carol. Near a week ago, Ezekiel said he had something he had to tell her, and it could only be done in person. Daryl don’t pry but he can tell Carol’s worried, something in the way he said it, she confides. They got here as soon as they could, as soon as Oceanside and Alexandria weren’t in need. They still are, it’s probably not going to stop until The Whisperers are as dead as they pretend to be, but it’s eased, and they had a window. Now he’s here for the fifth time today, dusk on the horizon, just to see if she’s coming.

The thought of Hershel is a prod too and he likes to think it’s because he loves the kid, which he does. Yet another part of him knows it’s the guilt that won’t ever go away, that he failed Hershel Senior and Glenn. That he’s got to protect Hershel’s daughter, Glenn’s wife and son. Beth’s nephew. That’s the truth of it though, at its core and he fucking knows it. It’s Beth, always there, a ghost that never leaves him. Prodding him to be good, being his listening ear, his guiding hand. It hurts to think about her, it always does because it’s always joined by that regret, that loss of something he just about touched.

That something he has no name for or maybe doesn’t want to name, not that it makes a difference. It hurts and he doesn’t do it often, doesn’t let himself picture her face, only the blur of candlelight and that braid in her pony. The hazy yellow of her polo, the grey of her cardigan, the faint stroke of piano keys. Sometimes he can’t fight it though and sometimes he welcomes it, to try and heal, is what he tells himself but it's self-inflicted torture. It's punishment and somewhere in there, a reminder to not let people slip through his fingers. Last time he thought of her was when he saw her picture, Lydia at his side.

There was a moment where he let himself believe he could share with Lydia everything Beth was. He thinks they would have got along, that Beth would have given her the benefit of the doubt that Daryl did. That she would have seen the good in people, as he tries to do in her memory. It’s a moment he’s not happened upon since, the thought of trying to explain Beth like lead on his tongue. To explain the thing that was growing between them, something he doesn’t think he even understands, is too big to bare. Maggie’s letter though, revived the parts of him containing Beth he squashes down and lets burn, brought her roaring back to the forefront of his mind.

There’s no movement at the gates when he pulls himself back into focus and he turns on his heel to walk away. Until the voices come, whispers that pick up into excited murmurs.

“It’s Maggie! Someone let the others know Maggie’s back!”

“Hey!” Daryl shouts up, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Open the gates!”

“Open the gates!” A voice relays, loud and booming in the air. “Maggie’s back!”

It spreads amongst the lookers on.

_Maggie’s back! _

_Hey guys, Maggie’s back! _

_Oh, look! Maggie! _

And then Daryl hears it change, slowly and smoothly, transitioning.

_Maggie’s back! Who’s that with her? _

_Hey Paul, d’you hear? Maggie’s back with some chick._

_ Maggie’s home, Luce, an’ there’s some blonde girl with her. _

A cold spray of gooseflesh runs from the top of his spine all the way down and he shudders. He doesn’t know what it is, he’s always reacted to the word blonde. Some fucked up PTSD from not dealing with his feelings or some shit, he’s always guessed but this feels different. His stomach is knotting and his heart’s clanging. There’s something his body knows that he can’t catch up with and he attests it to seeing Maggie again in so long. It’s hard to look at her, it always has been. Deep down, he knows it’s something more but there’s always going to be a foolish part of him. The sound of the gates start cranking, the doors pushing inwards.

First thing he sees is Maggie, with hair longer than when he first met her all those years ago. She’s on horseback, Hershel Junior sat in front of her, his hands over hers on the reigns. There’s a pretty smile on her face that makes him feel ill. It’s the first time she’s come home and Enid wasn’t here to greet her. They told her, of course they did but he knows the difference between knowing and feeling. Maggie thinks she’s felt it but she wasn’t ever gonna really feel it until she come home. The gates split wider and so does Maggie’s grin when she spots Daryl. He raises his hand in a wave but Hershel is the one who waves back.

Daryl smiles a little and starts to walk forward, not far enough that it’ll take him more than two minutes to reach them. He’s almost made it, watching as Maggie draws her horse to a stop and helps Hershel down. Just a couple of more feet until he’s within reaching distance of them but something about the way Maggie turns to look behind her makes him pause. That cold gooseflesh rises again as he looks at the open air behind Maggie’s head. There’s nothing there but the gates are still open and that’s when he remembers the other person the gathering crowd were mumbling about.

His feet go numb watching, his hands hanging limply at his sides and his confused glance is stolen by Maggie’s head turning to look at him. There’s an indescribable expression on her face and she only looks at him for a second before she turns back to look behind her again. She wants him to see. This is important. It’s not danger, he can sense that but adrenaline courses through him like it is anyway. He can’t catch his breath, his throat strangling tight. What the hell is happening to him? Every limb goes numb as a chestnut horse comes into view. There’s no one on top of it but there is someone leading it on.

The angle he’s at means he can only see the incoming horse and a pale arm holding the reigns. Maybe it’s the sunlight, maybe it’s the weird tightness in his throat, maybe it’s the breath he doesn’t have or maybe he’s gone fucking crazy. The hand holding the reign is pale and even paler is the silver scar slashed across the wrist. Everything goes cold, his stomach hard ice as a leg comes into view, hips and then a torso. The hair swings in the breeze, as long as Maggie’s and braided. Thick, honey gold chunks twined together and swinging like a rope.

The head comes last and he doesn’t know but he does know. He really does fucking know. His hand spasms at his side, his leg twitching as his knee threatens to buckle. The head is turned to face the horse, now at a stop, that braid obscuring the face. The face he knows. Fuck, he _knows_. His eyes are burning into that braid and_ actually_ burning too. His throat is so fucking tight air is whistling in his nostrils. The woman’s body goes still, the hand tightens on the reigns and then the head begins to turn, and_ fuck_ he’s going to hurl. The head turns and there’s the corner of the mouth, the side of the nose. Her nose. Her fucking nose.

Then she’s looking at him. She’s looking _right at him_ like she has any rights to be fucking _real. _She’s not that far, not that far at all but she’s too far for sound, too far for talking and yet he hears it anyway, hears it like he always remembers it, like it is in his dreams.

Beth’s voice whispering, “_Daryl.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's now a part three to this thing.
> 
> Why. Am. I. Like. This.

It’s his right knee first and then his left.

They buckle within seconds of each other and he barely saves himself, nails scrabbling for air. The world swings wide, his vision ripped from the thing he has no right to be seeing, to be believing. His legs are jelly, his heart bouncing against his chest. It’s within the last second he catches his own downfall, having roughhoused enough with Merle to learn how to regain his balance. With stillness there’s still no clarity, only now the worried look on Maggie’s face. She hurries over, leaving Hershel staring after her in confusion.

His face turns instead to the unexpected visitor, the one Daryl can’t stand to check is still there. Is real. He’s finally cracked. There’s nothing left for him to fight and he feels open, raw. Too vulnerable to be outside, to be around Maggie and she must see this because she hurries her step. Within the time it takes him to inhale and exhale wildly, her hand is wrapped around his arm and her face is looking up into his. There’s that expression again but it’s laced with one he recognises. Cluelessness. Maggie hasn’t got the first fucking clue how to explain the ghost he’s seeing and they both know it. He tries to talk first, even though he don’t know what he’s gonna say. He tries but nothing comes out save a few wheezy breaths. His chest is getting tighter and his vision is going grey at the edges.

Oh, _please_. He’s not fucking passing out. He’s not doing that shit. It’s clear his body has other ideas though because he’s swaying on his feet like his pop when he was black out pissed. Maggie’s hand tightens on him, warm but not all that comforting. He’s sure she’s saying something because her mouth is moving but all he hears is white noise.

“Need… talk… amazin’? Daryl, I… she’s back. She’s… it’s…”

The words fade in and out, hazy and unsure. He can’t take this shit much more, he thinks he’s having a goddamn heart attack.

“Let’s talk.” He hears that. Jesus, does he hear that.

He pins his eyes to Maggie’s and nods desperately, his numb hand clapping her shoulder and squeezing. “We should do that right fuckin’ _now_.”

“Not here.” He can hear full sentences again and it brings him a hot dash of relief.

“Meet us up at t’house, alrite?”

_Us. _Meet _us_.

_She means her an’ Hershel_, he thinks madly_. No she doesn’t. Why the fuck you lyin’ t’yourself, pal? _This voice isn’t his. This voice, he finds with some relief, is Merle’s_. Why you gotta look a gift horse in the mouth, dumbass? Chick jus’ come back t’life for ya! _

Daryl’s still nodding at Maggie as Merle berates him in his head. The control of his body is weak but he just about swings himself around and starts walking. _Think she missed ya? ‘Cause you damn sure missed her, huh? Eh, Darylina? You want that little honey in your bed tonight, don’tcha? _

_“_Fuck off,” Daryl growls under his breath, squeezing his fists together. “Get outta my goddamn head.”

_Don’t be such a pussy, boy. Been years since ya got ya dick wet! _

It has been years. So many years. So many people and places, gone. Christ, what has Maggie even said? How did she manage to explain Rick? Carl? Alpha? He don’t even really know where he’s heading, only that he’s heading inside, away from this madness that his exhausted body can’t take. When he reaches the house, he steps inside and just stops still. He guesses Maggie meant her office, the one that Jesus and Tara used a couple turns in her absence, but has always really been hers. It’s dusty inside, door creaking as he enters and full of that stillness that says someone hasn’t entered in a long time. For the first time since they were killed, he thinks about Tara, about Jesus.

It’s not like he felt about them the way he feels about Carol, about Maggie; Michonne, but that’s because trauma bounded those women to him. Not the way he felt about Rick, when Rick was still around to be his brother. But he loved them, in one form or another because of the life they all live, and because that’s just how the world works now. It’s love or hate. There’s no casual friendships, no one you walk by and give a little wave without knowing their name; their story. Daryl runs his fingers over the desk and eyes the chair he knows he’s not going to sit down in. It feels too wrong to sit down, to just accept this information in a seat like it’s a daily report.

His insides feel like they’re being turned outwards and pretty soon that grey haze pulsing on the edge of his vision is gonna take him, whether he wants it to or not. He stands by the window instead, pulling the heavy drape and letting the weak sunlight in, dust motes swirling in the fading beams of light. He can’t see Maggie outside, or Beth, for that matter. Just thinking her name makes him want to swallow his own tongue. Like it’s acceptable to be thinking of a dead person in the present tense. It’s not. It feels wrong, it all feels wrong and worse still is Merle’s silence in his head now like Merle don’t have no more bullshit to throw his way neither.

The door creaks open behind him and his heart drops to his toes. He swallows, grips the window ledge and half turns to face the incoming visitors. Maggie steps in first, holding the door open for her sister to follow through. Any breath he managed to pull back into his lungs dissipates like a popped balloon. This is as close as she’s been in goddamn years. Fucking years, and yet he feels rooted to the spot. The part of him that’s not self-conscious, that’s not full of dread that he’s gonna wake up any second, wants to run; sweep her in his arms and swing her around; crow to the fucking sky. But that other part has clamped down on all his muscles and he just stares like a goddamn moron.

“Daryl,” Maggie pierces the air, approaching him at the window but stopping at her desk. “I know I should have told you in my letters.”

“Y’think?” He spits and he don’t even expect it himself, but there’s raw anger boiling in his chest.

Truth is though, even if he had warning nothing on this earth would have prepared him for Beth walking through those gates. The image is replaying over and over in his goddamn head and it’s not gonna stop, not until the day he’s finally in the fucking ground. Maggie’s mouth thins but she doesn’t lash back at him and it instantly makes Daryl feel guilty. She must have been through all this too, when she found her, or bumped into her or recognised her, or whatever the fuck happened out there. He guesses that’s what she’s trying to explain so he needs to just shut his mouth and deal with his shit later.

His eyes are glued to Maggie but he can see the blur in the corner of his eye, encroaching further into the room without a word and he don’t know how he feels about it. Thing is, if she comes any closer, he really does think he’s gonna lose the very weak grip he’s got on his consciousness. He crosses his arms over his chest, almost as if to ward off that blur and it stops moving.

“So you gonna start from the beginnin’ or I gotta take shots in the dark?” He snaps once more and no matter how much he tries, he can’t reel that burning anger in because it’s the only thing saving him from sheer fucking insanity.

“D’you wanna get the others first? It’s a long story an’ I don’t think Beth’s gonna wanna be repeatin’ it hundred times.” Maggie answers, still soft and placating, though that firm mouth is in place at his tone.

Hearing her say her sister’s name makes his legs go to jelly and he sits heavily on the window ledge, trying to make it look more like he took a seat than collapsing. His eyes dare to skip to the left and look at _her,_ really look at her. She smiles at him, soft and scared, the way she used to on the farm when he was a redneck stranger. He bites down on the backs of his teeth because he’s really fucking struggling here. His stomach ties into a thousand knots as they hold eye contact for the barest of seconds and then he rips it away before he gets too carried away with himself.

“There ain’t no one else,” he grunts, eyes once more on Maggie.

Her forehead creases into a frown and she folds her own arms. “What're y’talkin’ ‘bout? The others…”

“What others, Maggie?” He near enough snarls, finding the strength to rise for the first time. “What others are still ‘round that ever knew B- her!” He throws his hand in Beth’s direction, struggling to say her name aloud. “There’s me, you, Michonne an’ Carol. There’s _no one_ else. Rick’s gone, Gle-“

Both women wince and his chest tightens into breathlessness. “Y’get the fuckin’ picture. Michonne’s still helpin’ out at Oceanside wit’ RJ an’ Judith. Carol’s dealin’ with some shit wit’ Zeke. S’just me, so go ahead.”

“Why you so goddamn angry?”

It feels like being punched straight in the throat, her voice lifting in the air. His eyes swing her way and he swallows tight. “’Cause you’re defyin’ fuckin’ nature bein’ here.”

“Oh, Daryl, c’mon,” Maggie begins with an edge creeping into her voice.

“No Mags, let him say whatever he’s gotta say,” Beth growls. “Man never learns.”

It’s maybe that comment that stings the most. Maybe all that it insinuates, all the things behind it that’s not spoken. It’s that which makes his stomach burn so hot it distracts from the sting of his eyes. “You been ‘round all this time an’ you what? Jus’ went ‘bout livin’ your life?” He throws the question out but he doesn’t really expect an answer, letting the words fling off his tongue instead. “Just thought you’d start a new one an’ not bother with the old? Huh? Forgot all 'bout us." Forgot 'bout _me_. Forgot _all about me._ "That it?”

“How the hell was I supposed t’know where to start!?” Beth shouts back, two splotches of red appearing in the apples of her cheeks. “Was I meant to just turn in a circle an’ then pick a direction? Don’t be an ass, Daryl!"

“I am an ass! An’ ass for runnin’ all goddamn night for you! An’ ass for haulin’ to Grady t’come get you an’ then believin’ that you wouldn’t do somethin’ fuckin’ stupid, like stab someone with the world’s smallest _scissors!”_

Beth blue eyes become wet and her lower lip trembles until she grits her teeth and it quells. “This’s bullshit! Y’ain’t changed a goddamn bit! Y’still a stubbun’_ ass_.”

“Beth!” Daryl shouts as she turns away and fuck, he _hates_ the way it tears free of his throat.

It sounds like fear, like that fear that pounded through his bloodstream when he saw that car drive off and she was gone. It burns all the way out and leaves a nasty taste in his mouth that forces his tongue over the backs of his teeth.

“Beth, wait,” Maggie calls a little calmer, but Beth ignores her sister as easily as she ignored him.

Without a second thought, he makes to give chase. “Hey.” Maggie seizes his wrist and tries to keep him still, but when he fights against her grip, she squeezes harder and raises her voice. “Hey! Y’stop an’ listen t’me right now!”

Breath whistles between his teeth as Beth’s braid disappears around the corner. How can he even let her out of his sight for two minutes? How’s he ever gonna survive with her being alive again? The terror that she can be snatched away from him, burning so much brighter because he knows how it feels when she’s dead.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“You listenin’ to me?” Maggie snaps and shakes his wrist once more, sending a jerk of pain right into his elbow.

Daryl hisses again and begrudgingly gives her his full attention. “_What_?”

Maggie’s green eyes are liquid fire as they stare up into his. “Do you know what I would give to have Glenn walk through them gates the way Beth jus’ did?”

He bristles because they both know whose fault Glenn’s death is and he can’t believe she’s pulling this shit right now. “S’not the same.”

“_Yeah_, it is. Stop pretenin’. Stop lyin’ to all of us but most of all Daryl, stop lyin’ to yourself.” She lets go of his wrist now and folds her arms over her chest. “Listen to me, Dixon an’ you listen good. Beth is back an’ I know you’re shittin’ bricks ‘bout it but that ain’t no reason to fall back t’your old ways an’ scream at her so she an’ everythin’ she makes you feel goes away.”

“Y’don’t get it.” He wants to growl it but it’s almost a whimper, his eyes staring at the empty air where Beth stood.

_“I don’t get it?_” Maggie’s voice rises into a pitch he’s not heard before, not even the night they were on their knees in a circle. “’Case you forgot, that’s my goddamn sister an’ I _lost her too_.” Her voice gives out at the end, turning his stomach.

It makes him feel like shit all over again but it can’t stop the defensive rise inside his chest. “Sister you didn’t look for!” Daryl bursts out, that same roaring fire burning in his gut. “Signs all over the fuckin’ place for Glenn! Was there ever one for her!?” He jabs his finger through the air, in the general direction that Beth run off in. “Did you ever even think ‘bout her?”

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Maggie’s teeth are gritted and audibly grinding, and where her arms are folded he can see her fingernails digging into the flesh of her arms. “Don’t you dare throw my failures in my face like I ain’t had to live with ‘em!”

He swallows and shoves his hand through his hair, tugging until his scalp screams and he can think straight. “Y’right. S’outta line. Fuck, I’m sorry.” He tips his head back against the door and blinks back the stinging in his eyes. “I’m fuckin’ sorry.”

Maggie sighs and reaches to lightly touch the back of his hand. “God knows I let Beth down but someone’s given me ‘nother chance, an’ there’s one waitin’ for you too.”

Daryl slowly tilts his chin down to look at her, when he’s sure he’s not going to do something stupid like fucking cry. “What if there ain’t?”

It’s not like he’s said aloud the shit that he thinks went down between him and Beth. The shit that he might have been making up all along. It’s not like Maggie knows that, not like he let his mouth run loose to another living soul, but the way Maggie just looks at him makes his face burn hot as coal.

“Did you see her face when y’said you run all night?” She pauses as if she’s waiting for him to say that was all a lie, something he said in the heat of the moment. He doesn’t. “There is,” Maggie finishes simply and softly.

Then with a soothing stroke of her palm over his knuckles as her parting gift, she turns her back on him and leaves him to clean up the mess he’s made. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third and final chapter! 
> 
> Thank you for inspiring me so much that this took a life of its own! 
> 
> I hope you all love. Thank you so much for your kudos, comments and bookmarks - they mean the absolute world.

Walking ain’t so much a thinking process but more of an automatic action. He only pauses to start consciously thinking about where his shuffling feet are taking him, when he reaches the place he was stood earlier today. Stops right in the spot that his whole world blew up in his face and everything he thought he knew obliterated into nothingness. He can see it all over again, a brilliant, fresh memory sitting over his eyes. He watches the gates open again, hears the crowd mumbling. Sees Maggie ride in and then her face, the way she looked at him before she turned back to look behind her. The way Beth’s braid was honey in the fading sunlight, twined and thick.

“Uncle Daryl!”

The memory falls apart into wisps of smoke and all at once he’s looking at the gate in the darkness, at the empty place where people no longer stand. He clears his throat and searches through the dimly lit darkness for the hard patter of feet he can hear. Just in time, he rotates his body around to catch Hershel flying into his arms.

“Hey, kid!” He crows, throwing Hershel into the air and back down again.

The kid screeches with delight and drops down to his feet, his grin big. “Did you miss me!?” He cries with childish innocence.

Dog comes bounding into Hershel from the right, barking madly and interrupting Daryl’s answer. “Hey boy,” he mutters instead as he rubs his hand over Dog’s head. “Y’found y’buddy, huh?” He looks up at Hershel, who reaches little hands to bury them in Dog’s fur alongside Daryl’s. “He missed ya, bud.”

“Really?” The kids eyes light up and he looks back to Dog with awe.

Daryl bends to one knee and uses one hand to rub Dog’s head, and the other to rub Hershel’s. “Y’bet, squirt. Y’mom know y’run off? Y’aint meant to be out afta dark.”

Hershel Junior pouts and rolls a shoulder. “I wanna see you. ‘Cause mom said that blonde lady is Aunt Beth, but I don’t think she likes me.”

Daryl frowns, patting dog before he reaches out to Hershel and pulls him onto his bent knee so they’re eye level. “Makes ya say that?”

Rolling his shoulder again, he picks at his t-shirt. “She doesn’t speak t’me less mamas there.”

Breathing softly, he ruffles Hershel’s hair lightly. “Think she’s jus’ nervous kid. Give’a sometime, alrite? She’s a real nice lady, Aunt Beth.”

“Okay,” Hershel answers with a raised chin and his usual smile.

“Aunt Beth at home now?” He asks, setting Hershel to his feet.

“She’s on the swing. She looks sad.” Hershel shrugs like this is common occurrence, which makes Daryl wonder if it is.

“C’mon then, let’s all head back. Y’play in the back yard where y’mom can see ya.” Hershel nods easily, reaching his hand for Daryl’s. “Gimme minute, kid. Stay right there with Dog an’ don’t move, y’hear?” When Hershel nods again, Daryl glances to the wagging dog at his side. “Dog, stay.”

Running quick, he finds his bike where he stored it and pops the seat. He keeps rooms at all the communities, maybe the most personal one being the basement of Carol's place in Alexandria, but his bike is his real home, the thing that stays with him wherever he goes. The place where he stores the most important things. Beth’s knife sits snug under his spare rags. He don’t have things that he cares about or really fights to keep safe on his travels, except his bow and this knife. It’s not just because it’s Beth's. That’s a large part of it, yeah, fine, he’ll admit it. At least to himself. But another part of it is the memory it holds.

Whenever he looks at that knife, he _sees_ without seeing the healed, dimpled flesh in his hand. Fresh as anything, he remembers the burn as his skin screamed, but nothing compared to the way his heart howled with grief. He’ll always tie the two memories together and he has no intention, nor has he ever, of trying to untwine them. Beth’s always been worth hurting for; burning for, so he’s left it be. He’s let it burn him every time. Now he’s giving that back, giving it away and closing the lid on that pain. He’s saying goodbye to his ache, to his grief, when he hands it to her.

Which is what he’s gearing himself to do as he takes Hershel, Dog and his bike over to Maggie's. Hershel and Dog run through the house, Maggie’s voice berating him the minute he steps foot inside. Daryl only half listens, his bike safely on its stand and his eyes now enraptured instead by Beth. Like Hershel said, she’s on the swing, under the moonlight. Her hair is still twined and shining with the silver of the moon. Her scars become translucent under the light too, nearly smoothing her face back into that girl he lost out on the road. Like her old face laying over her new one.

When she turns her head to look at him, he sees both at once, like the sun and the moon, one slotting in behind the other until her face is a total eclipse. Beth Greene's new face looks back at him, thick scars raising across her skin, eyes fierce though still that blue he’s always loved, mostly because it's the colour of his Ma's favourite blanket, the one she always wrapped him up in when he was sick. Her eyes have always been home, always been comforting.

Her expression is hard and unyielding as he approaches and doesn’t let up, even when he proffers the knife before him. “Thought y'should have it back.”

“Why?” She asks with a voice so devoid of caring it makes his gut twist.

“’Cause it’s yours,” he answers, placing it instead by her hip when she doesn't take it, and stepping back so he can begin shredding at his fingers. She inclines her chin and he notices for the first time how sharp it is, how her baby face has filled out and her sharpness has redecorated it. Even still, she does it in a way that seems like she’s not agreeing with him, but dismissing him. “Canni sit?” He motions to the thin space beside her, noting her legs stop swinging and she moves without complain. So she doesn’t completely hate him.

He sits, skin heating as it presses against hers on the small swing seat. “M'sorry. Y'know, f'everythin'.”

He don’t think he can dip any further than that. He don’t know if he can rip the band aid off yet or delve any deeper. She makes a quiet noise in her throat and he knows he’s not getting off that easy but he really ain’t got the words past that. He ought to have thought this shit through, but if he thought on it too much he would of been too chicken shit to come find her.

“I don’t get you. I thought y'woulda been...” She falters, not like she can’t find the right word but like she doesn’t want to present the wrong one, one that would affect him. “Happy,” she finishes without inflation, an empty word.

“’Course m'fuckin’ _happy.” _He’s so sucker punched he doesn’t know how to explain himself any further. “I’m jus’ _me.”_

“Daryl, I.” She cuts off with a broken gasp and he dares to look at her, his heart clutching at the tears streaming down her face. “I know it’s probably not... I mean, I know it wasn’t the same for you... that, that you didn’t feel...”

His heart is jack hammering in his chest listening to the things she is saying, and the things she's not. As she continues to hesitate, his pulse beats rapid in his ears and he knows he’s finally found it. The thing that was so wrong, the anxiety that made him flip out, the terror scrabbling under his skin. She’s alive. She’s not dead, she’s not gone to some place where he can’t reach her and has to take guesses about what she thought back in those days on the road. Now there’s a chance she could tell him she never felt the way he did, that he made it all up, that it was all in his head.

Now she can tell him that’s he a dirty fucking pervert who prayed on a young girl who was trapped with him and couldn’t get away. She could tell him everything he wants to hear. That she feels the same, that she felt the same then, that he's not making it all up; that they were on that ride together. That she loves him. Either way he swings it, now she can blow apart his whole fucking world once again and he just can’t fucking take it. 

Taking a deep, rattling breath she bows her head before looking up at him under her big lashes. “I’m so tired. Please jus' hug me. Jus’... tell me you’re happy I’m alive.”

Daryl wishes he wasn't such a fucking gormless idiot that she needs to _ask _him to say those things, when they should be all over his face, in his eyes, bleeding from him. She should just fucking _know. _Which is maybe why his voice is so rough and hoarse when he whispers, “Beth, I’m really fuckin’ glad you’re alive.” He swallows his nerves, steels his gut. “I missed you.”

The golden braid falls against his hip first and then her head's there, crashing onto his chest with force. He thinks he stops breathing, knowing she asked but not expecting it yet and not with such _need. _The pressure of his elbow resting on the back of the swing sends numbing tingles up his forearm until his hand hangs limp in the space above her shoulder. It stays there a moment, useless and dangling, then he lets it fall, curling his fingers around the soft flesh of Beth's shoulder and tugging her close, marvelling at the way she buries her face in his chest. It feels so unbelievably fucking good to have her in his arms.

He thought he knew what it felt like, pieced together by little touches they shared years ago, and that hug in her cell, but he was lying to himself. Lying to himself in the same way he was pretending he wasn’t in love with her. Wasn’t completely and utterly enraptured by her. That mortifying sting in his eyes is back and this time, he just can’t fight it. He lets the hot tears slide down his cheeks unchecked but tries to swallow the burning lump in his throat away. They rock in silence for the longest time, Daryl watching the community of Hilltop move around them, preparing to swap shifts, heading off to dinner, kid’s names heckled through the darkness before little feet pound the floor.

His arms stay around her and his tears cool, the ache in his throat lessening. He could stay like this forever, savouring the taste of sheer elation and dumb luck having her back brings. It’s heady and he finds his chin tipping to the top of her head, his nose over time sliding into her hair so he can inhale a smell that’s like nostalgia.

It’s Beth who speaks first, turning her face from his chest to lie her head on his shoulder, and it feels so _normal _too, like this is something they did, something they do. “I woke up to all these rottin’ hands pushin’ inside the car. Maggie said you all decided on the car.”

Daryl freezes, his warm little bubble popping. His head lifts and then turns sharply to look out at the darkness around them. He feels sick to his stomach and he knows that sickness is guilt. They all knew what it meant to leave her body in that car. They all agreed they would go back, all pretended like it was an option but it never fucking was. Her leaking bullet wound was going to attract walkers and every single fucking person there _knew_ it. They left her to be eaten and that’s the twisted reality of it.

“Didn’t even have my knife.” It’s not accusing, the way she says it, just fact but it twists his stomach all the same.

He thinks about that very knife sitting to the side of Beth’s other hip. He can’t begin to count how long it’s sat snug in the seat of his bike. Daryl supposes he shouldn’t be feeling a pang of loss in his chest after giving it back to her. It’s hers, plain and simple, but there’s also no sense in holding onto something that’s no longer a memory. She’s here. She’s alive and well and right here.

“We failed you,” he whispers. “We all did. An’ y'aint gotta say. Y'aint gotta sit here tellin’ your story like it’s some cool fuckin’ movie. You ain’t gotta do it for me.”

He’s not sure how she’ll take that, but when she heaves a sigh of relief and melts further into him, he can’t help but feel he did the right thing. Her arm slides beneath his back, and her other around his waist until they’re both wrapped around each other; in each other. Part of him wants to panic but it feels too right, too good, too normal. He don’t want it to end.

“What y'were sayin' earlier.” Pressing into the silence hesitantly; with care. “I think I got it. I think I know what you wanna say.”

Beth’s body tenses in his arms and her chin tips up slowly, nervously with her eyes the same if not more. “When we were on the road?” She ventures before pressing her lips together, almost holding her breath.

Daryl mirrors her breathlessly, his luck pushing as he reaches to stroke hair from her big, blue eyes. “’member the funeral home? Member what y'asked me?”

The tension is so tight now, their hearts beating against each other through their chests. “What made you change your mind?”

He swallows hearing it again, out loud this time, not in his replayed memories. “You,” he whispers softly and when he leans down, not breathing at all, Beth’s lips press to his with a sound like a sob, and words soft and secret.

“I waited so long to hear you say that.”


End file.
